In so many ways, mine has been a story of fathers and sons. I started out by kicking a ball about with my dad, Bobby – admittedly to a repetitive, almost obsessive extent. For all those youth games, trials, trips to Melwood, Anfield, home and away, Dad was by my side. His health slowly but inexorably declined after he suffered a stroke in 2004 and I was devastated beyond words when he was finally taken from us in April 2017. There are landmarks in your life, professional and personal, that compel you to take stock of what you’ve done and where you are: the loss of your father is a time for reflection.
My lad Jacob is on Liverpool’s books, a huge source of pride for me, Kerrie and the whole family. It might sound an odd way to describe a team game, but a footballer’s life can be lonely at times. For all the undoubted highs, you have to expect some pretty crushing lows as well – injuries, loss of form, getting dropped, losing key games. You don’t just simply take those things on the chin and move on, it’s tough. So, as his father and his mate, I’m grateful that I’ve earned that perspective and I’ve been able to guide Jacob through the game’s ups and downs. He’s a brilliant footballer, two-footed, instinctive, creative – completely his own player (but with a definitive Fowler knack for finding the net!). He lives and breathes Liverpool as much as I do and there are few things I love more than the times we spend together, going to games. We may get to travel with the team sometimes (and we might get the best seats!), but we are no different to any other fans, hoping against hope, longing for glory, dreaming in Red.
On the afternoon of the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, I was sitting in a plaza with Jacob, watching all the fans coming and going, hundreds of them, thousands, enjoying a sunny afternoon in a beautiful European city, wearing their shirts with pride. And that was a thing that hit me, big time – the way Jürgen Klopp has given the Liverpool fans their pride back. I was sitting there outside a street café with my little lad before one of the elite fixtures in world football and I said to him: ‘What a brilliant time this is to be a Liverpool fan.’
He said, ‘I know, Dad. But this is just the start.’
In spite of how well we played against Barca that night, we somehow came away on the wrong end of a 3–0 defeat. I found myself in the strange position of – supposedly – being the grown-up, being consoled by my kid.
‘It’s not over. We’ve done it before, Dad. Loads of times. We can do it again.’
I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t feeling it at all. Even with Liverpool’s great history of turning these sorts of setbacks around, I honestly could not see a way this was going to be one of them. Beating Barcelona by a clear four-goal margin was not looking likely to me at all.
In the run-up to the return leg, I started to feel more positive. All season we had been scoring late goals and winning tricky games, just as they seemed to be slipping away from us. There was Divock Origi’s goal in the 96th minute against Everton, guaranteeing them a Blue Christmas. The late show at Southampton, where Mo Salah scored an absolute beauty right at the end. Then Salah got that nasty head injury that saw him stretchered off at Newcastle. Liverpool were still neck and neck with Man City in the race for the title so it was critical that we take all three points to keep the pressure on them. But, all of a sudden, luck was beginning to conspire against us. We already knew that Bobby Firmino was out of action for the Barca game and now our talisman Mo Salah looked like he was going to be out, too. It was still 2–2 at Newcastle with a few minutes left of the time the ref had added on for Salah’s treatment. I was glancing over at Jacob, thinking, Poor kid! We’ve had a good go in the League, but we’re not quite gonna make it, now. And we’ve got to score four against Barcelona without Salah and Firmino. And without them scoring …
I was getting this big speech ready for him about how you draw strength from adversity; how Jürgen Klopp had transformed LFC and how next season was definitely going to be our year – when up popped Origi to nod a header in at the far post: 3–2 to Liverpool! Delirium in the Fowlers’ front room!
Liverpool were once more two points clear of City at the top of the Premier League. If Leicester could get a draw, or somehow win the game, then we would have to beat Wolves’ last game of the season to be sure of being Champions. Leicester gave as good as they got for over an hour and City were launching attack after attack, but it was Filbert The Fox’s team who created the two best chances. Just as me and Jacob were starting to think this might be on, Vincent Kompany – who, I’ve got to say, is a phenomenal player and a born leader – crashed in that bastard of a shot from about 35 yards. It was one of those shots where you just have to nod your head and say, okay, that was absolute quality. And if your team is going toe-to-toe with Man City, amassing 97 points and only getting beaten once over the entire season and City still end up as Champions, then maybe you just say fair do’s. You give City the credit they deserve and come back next year, ready to go again.
My overriding fear was that, after the euphoria of the win at Newcastle on the Saturday night, the disappointment of City’s own late show on the Monday would burst our bubble heading into the return game against Barcelona the next day. No chance! If my own household was anything to go by, these young Reds had no intention of lying down and dying. If they were to go down and go out, they’d go down fighting. Jacob said to me, ‘Dad, it’s the biggest game in Europe. We’re 3–0 down at half-time. Ring any bells?’
I’m writing this many weeks after the season ended and I still get a shiver down my spine, thinking about that night at Anfield on 7th May 2019. I’ve known some stupendous nights there, including a semi-final of my own against Barcelona, back in 2001. The roof nearly came off The Kop that night and the game against Roma on that same UEFA Cup run to Dortmund was special, too.
My dad’s pal Bobby Wilcox always used to talk about the European Cup semi-final against Inter Milan, back in 1965, as being the loudest and scariest he’d ever heard Anfield, while the entire ground was shaking for that first semi against Chelsea in 2005. The old stadium manager, Ged Poynton, once told me that they have the equivalent of a Richter Scale to measure what would be considered a safe level of ‘trembling’ in The Kop’s structure but he added that, for the 2005 Chelsea game, all four stands were shaking way above any level they had ever recorded!
These are all fantastic memories, and all go towards the folklore of Liverpool Football Club, but I swear the noise as Jordan Henderson led the Liverpool team out against Barcelona that night was something else. You know when people say ‘There’s something in the air’? Well, that was it. It was phenomenal, one of those unique and magical nights where the team, the fans and the occasion all come together to create an unstoppable force. When it happens like that at Anfield, it goes beyond anything you can explain – it’s witchcraft. I was in the commentary box with Michael Owen, Rio Ferdinand and Gary Lineker and, honestly, they just stopped speaking and turned around in their seats in a stunned kind of disbelief. I know Rio wouldn’t want to admit it, but he knew he was witnessing something very, very special.
From the moment Origi slotted in the rebound from Jordan Henderson’s effort at six minutes, you could see Barca knew they were up against a higher power, too. They kept on going, and did create the odd chance, but for me, it looked as though they were going through the motions. It was as though they were hoping that just by turning up and being Barca, it would be enough to get the job done.
I went down to find Jacob at half-time, buzzing. Honestly, there was an electric current running through you, this absolute, heightened anticipation that something crazy was about to happen. You could sense it. And yet there was still the realist in me thinking all they had to do was break away and score one goal and that would be the tie, dead. Looking down at their attacking trio, Coutinho, Messi and Suárez, were we really going to keep them out for another 45–50 minutes and still score three more ourselves? Surely, the more we had to push forward for those goals, the more we’d leave ourselves open at the back? And then Jacob nudged me and said, ‘Listen to that!’
We were down in the bowels on the Main Stand, but the noise rising up from the crowd … You could feel it throbbing through the soles of your feet! There must have been whole miles of analysis and reflection written about that second half, but here’s mine: The fact that the third goal came so quickly after the second is what finished Barcelona. From the moment Gini Wijnaldum scores our second, wrestles the ball from their keeper, runs back to the centre circle and plants the ball on the spot, Liverpool are like boxers who can smell blood. Barcelona are rocking on their heels, their eyes wild and scared as they hang on the ropes, trying to buy a bit of time to recover. They’re thinking, ‘If I can just survive these next few rounds, we can see this out and take it on points.’ Then Liverpool go down the other end and score again – from 1–0 to 3–0 in a minute – and Barca are dead on their feet.
I looked down onto the pitch and you could see it all over them – the world’s best front three were just stunned. Clueless. Coutinho looked as though he wanted to be made invisible (which he had been all night, to be fair!), Suárez was shaking his head, unable to take it in. But Messi’s face was the one that told the biggest story: he was in pain, psychological torment, because he knew at that point they were going out. It was only the 55th minute and a stronger team with a better collective will should have been able to galvanise themselves, regroup and come up with something between them to get that crucial goal. But Barcelona didn’t lay a glove on us. They were literally petrified, turned to stone by the occasion. They’d thought that being 3–0 up and with Salah and Firmino out of the game, it was all over, yet the two lads who came in to replace them – Shaqiri and Origi – were not there to make up the numbers, they were killing them.
My view is that Liverpool were by far the better side in both games, it was just that Barcelona scored more goals than us in the first one. And as they stood there, waiting to kick off again after our third, all those side-stories came home to roost: Coutinho’s backache in the lead-up to his departure to Barca, Suárez telling the world he had to leave Liverpool to fulfil his dreams. Well, now Liverpool were fuelling his worst nightmares, finally putting Barcelona out of their misery with that remarkable fourth goal from a brilliant, intelligent short corner.
Even from the commentary box, the scenes were ridiculous! Jubilant fans all around us were leaping on top of complete strangers in total ecstasy, a tangle of limbs, everyone dancing round, arms around each other. As a match pundit, I found it all very difficult to put into words at the end, but for once, my raw emotion said it much more powerfully. I was almost in tears, so proud of the team, the club, the supporters, the city.
I left the box to celebrate with Jacob – our faces were contorted with joy. I went to lift him up. By that time, I was in very advanced talks with Brisbane Roar about the manager’s job. I hesitated for a second, thinking how many times my back and my hip had given me trouble over the years. Was I going to risk going into my first proper coaching job with a ricked back? Too right I was! The Fowler boys were up there with the best of ’em, giving it loads. That sight of the entire team stood in front of The Kop, arms linked, singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, will live with me forever. Mo Salah in his ‘Never Give Up’ T-shirt, his big, radiant grin lighting up the night sky. Me and my lad were there to see all that and be a part of it – and now we were off to Madrid for the final!